emotion and reason in persuasion
looks like the academic researchers are beginning to catch on. in a rush so no time to relate to the topic at hand, but it should be fairly obvious…
btw has anyone noticed an increase in envious oral IoIs with A314 type mixes?
‘see you tomorrow.
where do you live?
round the corner
you bastard… I mean it’s a nice area’
from someone i just met two days ago on this course…
ScienceDirect - Journal of Business Research : Emotion and reason in persuasion*1: Applying the ARI model and the CASC Scale
Whereas practitioners in advertising and marketing clearly appreciate the importance of affect and emotion, traditional academic approaches to the analysis of persuasion tend to stress rational “central route” or “systematic” processing. However, the notion of two sorts of cognitive process—one rational, the other affective—has gained increasing support. This paper presents a view of the conceptualization and operationalization of the interaction of affect and reason based upon MacLeans’s triune theory of the brain, distinguishing reptilian, individualist and prosocial biological emotions, as well as “higher level” social, cognitive and moral emotions
…
tions to a stimulus may then be acquired by virtue of experience with that
stimulus, even if not accompanied by a rational process such as recognition
of the stimulus. In contrast to reason, affects are the first reaction to stimuli,
are made without perceptual “encoding,” and are made with greater confi-
dence and more quickly. Thus it is not necessary to “know” something
before liking it. However, all rational cognitions are accompanied by affects
despite parallel yet separate and independent systems.
To quote Zajonc (1980, p. 153) on the pervasive nature of emotions,
he says, “There are practically no social phenomena that do not implicate
affect in some important way. Affect dominates social interaction and it is
the major currency in which all social intercourse is transacted.” For
instance, one cannot meet a person without feeling some inner attraction
or revulsion. Affective reactions are thus important because we do not
simply see things as they are, but instead, we provide affective interpreta-
tions of them (e.g., not just a sunset, but a “beautiful” sunset).
COMPARING EMOTIONAL AND RATIONAL PERSUASION
Emotions can never be wrong. Understanding and the intellect can betray
us and prove us wrong, but emotions are always true and real. There can be
no doubt about the existence of feeling. This virtue has marketing applica-
tions. Consumers can be wrong about their beliefs about a product, but they
can have no misconception about their emotional response to a product or
advertisement. We, as marketers, may mistake how they feel and consumers
themselves may not always reveal their true internal state. Nevertheless, if
we can generate feelings, these will be genuine and accurate and, thus, more
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2 EMOTION AND REASON
resistant to competitive claims than a rational belief in the virtues of the
product. Rational beliefs about products can be changed by competitors
providing “new evidence” in the way of taste tests and the like. It will be
much harder to change a consumer’s overall affective disposition to a brand.
Beliefs are amenable to change; feelings are more resistant.
Buck (1984) makes the same point when he distinguishes between
spontaneous communication, which is nonvoluntary, nonpropositional
(cannot be false), and nonsymbolic, and signals meaning via a biologically
based system, and symbolic communication, which is intentional, proposi-
tional, and functions on a socially shared system (such as language)
between sender and receiver.
What would it take to change someone’s positive feelings of liking
towards a brand? A price change? Bad word of mouth from a friend?
A single bad experience with the brand? Nonavailability of the brand? None
of the above? It would seem, then, that emotions can create long-term
brand loyalty, which is the goal of most marketing campaigns. Of course,
rational beliefs can lead to repeated buying of the brand as well. However,
when you have an emotional commitment to the brand you may also have a
superior kind of brand loyalty. Aaker (1991) distinguishes between different
types of brand loyalty. Contrast, for example, the car buyer who buys a
Beetle because she “loves” it and the buyer who buys a Hyundai because it
is cheaper. Whose loyalty could you count on in the future?
Emotions are global. By showing photographs of facial expressions to
observers, Ekman and Friesen (1975) identified six widely occurring emo-
tions, usually referred to as the six basic affects: happiness, sadness, fear,
anger, surprise, and disgust. Darwin’s (1872) seminal book on facial
expressions established that such expressions are universal and not cul-
tural. Affects are basic and common across cultures and universal in their
signal systems. Thus, affects produce more predictable reactions across
consumer segments than cognitive systems, which are different across
cultures.
…
Emotions are fundamental. Ray and Batra (1983) state that the affec-
tive is the first level of response and governs our subsequent relations with
the environment. It primes and makes available the inference rules that
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COMPARING EMOTIONAL AND RATIONAL PERSUASION
29
favor positive appraisals, because it creates uncritical judgments of a
favorable nature. Cognitive defenses are lowered by emotional treatments.
Very often, we use rational arguments to justify what we really “feel” like
doing. Volvo uses this in the headline of an ad urging Americans to buy
the car in Europe because it is cheaper—“How to justify a European vaca-
tion.” The “real” reason is the pleasure of touring Europe in a new sedan.
The justification is the rationality of obtaining a lower price for the car
while in Europe.
Emotions are fast, catchy, and memorable. Emotional appeals lead to
better attention getting, better processing of information, and better reten-
tion in memory (Ray & Batra, 1983). Because these appeals are often (but
not always) nonverbal they are also quicker to communicate. A picture
speaks faster than a sentence and, once again, this type of “spontaneous”
communication has an impact very different and often more complete
than that of “symbolic” communication using words.
Emotions are permanent. According to Zajonc (1980), we have little
control over affects and once evoked, they are irrevocable. Affects may
become separated from content and still remain. We may forget the con-
tent of a book, movie, or advertisement, but not the feelings elicited by
them. This is especially significant for marketing communications because
affective attitudes may, thus, be less conducive to change than cognitive
ones. For instance, whereas cognitive brand attitudes can be changed by
merely supplying competing information of a more favorable kind (price
appeals, etc.), brand attitudes created by affect may be more abiding and
even irrevocable because, according to Zajonc, these are also independent
of content.
Emotions are independent of rational cognition. Affects do not depend
on rational cognitions, whereas all social phenomena involve affects (Zajonc,
1980). Affective reactions may be acquired by virtue of experience with a
stimulus, even if not accompanied by a rational message. However, all
rational cognitions are accompanied by affects—we do not see an advertise-
ment without interpreting it as a “good” or “bad” ad.
Overall, emotional positioning is inherently superior to positioning
your brand only on rational attributes. Your brand’s competitors can copy
your rational product benefits and say that they “do it better.” However, if
you have created a long-term emotional image for your brand, your com-
petitors would be foolish to copy it. Think about it. If you used cowboys in
a cigarette ad or babies in an automobile tires ad, who would consumers
think the ad was for? You would actually be spending your ad dollars to
promote Marlboro or Michelin!
…
Another caveat to remember is that “image” without substance is not
likely to work in the long run. Emotional persuasion must be backed up
by quality products and services. I think it was Abraham Lincoln who
said that “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the
people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the
time.” Not that emotional persuasion is the same as “fooling” people. Not
at all. But, with most products, you need to satisfy the rational as well as
the emotional needs of your consumers.
RESEARCH RESULTS
1
A Study of the Independence of Emotion and Reason
Purpose of the Study
The subject of the independence of affect from cognition has been a
controversial one (Lazarus, 1984; Zajonc, 1980). According to Zajonc,
affect can be evoked prior to cognition and it can be independent of
cognition. On the other hand, Lazarus has argued that affect is dependent
on cognition. Consumer researchers (Anand, Holbrook, & Stephens, 1988;
Tsal, 1985) have also contested the notion of the independence of affect.
Others (Heath, 1990; Janiszewski, 1988) have continued to espouse the
mere exposure (Moreland & Zajonc, 1977) effect through which affect is
supposed to obtain its effect independent of recognition.
Most studies have tested affect using generalized affect measurements
such as like-dislike ratings. The purpose of this study is to test the inde-
pendence of affect using qualitatively different types of affects such as
prosocial feelings, based on paleocortical (limbic) parts of the brain, and
reptilian feelings, based on subcortical areas (MacLean, 1993). Recent
brain research shows that certain emotional structures in the brain receive
1
This research is reprinted with permission from the 2004 AMA Winter Educators’
Conference Proceedings, published by the American Marketing Association, Chaudhuri,
Arjun, 2004, Vol. 15, 286–292.
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RESEARCH RESULTS
31
information independently of the neocortical structures associated with
cognition (LeDoux, 1996). Thus, it is possible that different types of affect
may function differently in their relationship to cognition. Buck and his
colleagues (1988, 1995, 1999) have argued that reptilian emotions involve
“raw” sex and aggression whereas prosocial-limbic emotions involve
attachment, which serves as the basis for feelings such as love, pride, and
pity. Buck and his colleagues have also developed the ARI (Affect,
Reason, Involvement) model in which reason and affect combine in differ-
ent proportions, suggesting that affect is not an undifferentiated concept
and that different types of affects may have different relationships with
reason or cognition. It may be that both Zajonc and Lazarus are right,
depending on which type of affect is in question.
Accordingly, I conducted a study of the independence of affect using
both prosocial and reptilian feelings as dependent variables and using a
task manipulation to create the effect of cognition. The two ads described
by Buck et al. (1995, p. 446) were used as the stimuli in the experiments,
and these two ads will be referred to as the patriotic and sexual ads in the
study. The effect of gender, familiarity with the ad, and attitude to advertis-
ing on prosocial and reptilian feelings was also studied. In addition, I exam-
ined the effects of all these variables on attitude to the ad because this
concept includes liking ratings that have been used in previous research on
the independence of affect (Anand, Holbrook, & Stephens 1988; Zajonc &
Moreland, 1977). The main research questions in the study were as follows:
- Are prosocial and reptilian feelings evoked differently for
(a) different types of ads and (b) the different types of task
environments in which they are viewed?
- Do certain types of ads evoke prosocial/reptilian feelings under
certain task environments?
- Are prosocial ads more effective in terms of attitude to the ad
(liking for the ad)? Is this effect greater in a high task condition?
Hypotheses
As discussed, Buck et al. (1995) suggest that the sexual ad used in this
study should evoke reptilian feelings of sex, power, and other feelings
associated with the reptilian brain, as discussed by MacLean (1973, 1990).
EMOTION AND REASON read the whole thing
)..
, but they’re all cool with it.